


Nightwing and Flamebird

by twriting



Series: World's Finest [6]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types, World's Finest (Comics)
Genre: 'cause these two muppets had to start growing up sooner or later, Alternate Universe - Age Changes, Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Female Clark Kent, Female Dick Grayson, Kryptonian Culture & Customs, little bit of superbat if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:20:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22606906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twriting/pseuds/twriting
Summary: "Haelaela kalro, lumdaen si fortaen.""Is this whole story going to be in Kryptonian?""No, just the admonishment. It means 'Children, be silent and learn'.""Rude.""It could also mean 'Children, grow in peace' but I think the first translation is closer."This is the story of the making of the gods Nightwing and Flamebird, after Rao and Krypton found the rivers of light together. And how the Flamebird was born, and died, and was born anew.And also of two human disasters slowly working out how to deal with one another.
Relationships: Clark Kent & Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne
Series: World's Finest [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1554871
Comments: 14
Kudos: 53





	1. Chapter 1

Bruce Wayne puts his phone on speaker and sets it on the little worktable next to his chair. He keeps his eye on what he can see of Dixie Grayson. Right now that's just a pair of bloodshot eyes staring out from under a blanket.

It's unusual for him to contact Cantrell Kent, the so-called 'superwoman', by call. Normally he would use the secure messaging app he installed on her phone. But this is a perfectly legitimate reason for someone in his position to reach out to a university student.

"I need your help."

" _Do I get to punch a bad clown?_ " Cantrell's accent is a good example of a blended dialect, a little bit Midwest and a little bit Delaware Valley. Any other time he would ask Dixie to listen to the sounds, the rhythms. Now is not the right time.

"No. Maybe later. Dixie needs a babysitter."

"I do not," Dixie mutters, lying sideways on the medical room's exam table. She insists she's not sick, the heated table just feels nice.

" _Oh no, what's wrong?_ "

"She has a flu. Influenza, not a stomach problem. I don't want to leave her but I have a charity event tonight I need to be seen at."

" _Sure, I can do it. I'll bring my notes over and do a little reading. Is Alfred sick too?_ "

"Alfred is performing. Polonius."

" _Oh, I bet he's good_."

"He is. But the only way I could get him out of the house was by promising that I'd have someone trustworthy look after Dixie. I could call the agency that provides her school perimeter, but I'd rather have someone she knows. It's the first time she'll be in the manor without myself, Alfred, or Selina around."

"I don't need a babysitter," Dixie snuffles from underneath her blankets. The eyes that peer out at Bruce convey a deep sense of betrayal.

It's overkill calling someone like Cantrell to look after your kid. And selfish, given what else she could be doing with her time. But there aren't a lot of other people he really trusts to do it.

"Selina is in Opal City. They have a surprisingly good antiques scene, apparently."

" _Yeah, Lana used to talk about it a lot. I actually got to visit the district couple of times, but I could never afford anything really nice. So how do you want me to show up? I mean, sign in at the front gate, or land somewhere?_ "

"If you can get here in the next fifteen minutes, come in through the basement. I'm down here in the medical wing with Dixie."

" _You're using a field hospital outfitted with state-of-the-art equipment to take care of a kid's flu?_ "

"Yes."

" _You're a good dad. I'll be there in a few minutes, I just need to pick up some things on the way._ "

"You don't need to - " The phone cuts off. Bruce frowns at it.

He shouldn't be so pathetically grateful that someone six years younger than him would call him a good dad. But Cantrell Kent is the only adult from a normal family he knows. Except for some of his employees, but obviously he can't ask them if he's a good foster parent. So that leaves Selina and Alfred. Between the two of them... Alfred barely talks about his family. Selina, the less said the better.

"You kinda are," Dixie mutters.

He doesn't trust himself to answer so Bruce gets up and walks over to the medical table. He puts a hand on Dixie's shoulder. It's not that his throat is tight but it is dry down here so he clears his voice and says "Thanks. You're a good -" and he knows he can't say daughter without his voice breaking so he finishes with "- kid."

She really is.

* * *

Down in the lower area of the cave a pile of notes and diagrams stirs on the workbench, then flutters across the floor around one of his cars. A low rumble is heard through the cave, and then Cantrell Kent swoops in through the stone archway that leads to the underground river. Graceful arcs carry her across the cave and up the metal stairs leading to the work levels.

"Hi Dixie, hi Bruce." She lands on the medical wing's concrete floor. Carrying a black MetU gym bag that appears to be only half-full. Worn out jeans, ropers, and a loose MetU sweatshirt. Her long hair, too heavily waved to be called wavy but not enough to be called curly, is a mess. Again she forgot to tie it back while flying. Blue eyes that can see through walls light up as she looks at Dixie. "Hm. That shade of infrared is just a bit over ninety-nine degrees. Not great, but not dangerous. I'll keep an eye on it. How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine. I don't need a - " From her sinuses Dixie makes a wet shnurking noise that might include the word babysitter. "I'm not sick."

"Obviously not." Cantrell holds up a small grocery bag. "I picked up some supplies. Lemons, honey, a little ginger, some teas."

Cantrell is a student. Bruce is a fucking billionaire. She doesn't need to spend her money on anyone in this house. "That was unnecessary. We have all of that."

"I wasn't about to ask you to run upstairs just to check your pantry."

"Fine. Thank you."

There's nothing that the equipment down here can tell them that anyone can't see by simple observation. Dixie has a flu. Bruce reaches out to her. "We'll go upstairs where you can rest properly." He keeps an eye on her as she wobbles out of the medical wing, towards the access to the house. Bruce and Cantrell follow.

Access to upstairs is by elevator and stairs, located in the crook of the L between the medical wing and the tech room. Bruces uses the nooks and crannies in the space as storage for non-essential gear. Brooms, dust mops, basic cleaning supplies. And the wooden bat Dixie bought for him. He'd been playing with it earlier while the bed ran its diagnostic scans on Dixie.

Cantrell looks at the bat, leaning in a corner between the stairs and the door to the medical wing. The black insignia Dixie scorched into it with a wood burning kit is a little shaky. Cantrell looks at Dixie. Through blurry eyes and a red nose and chapped lips, Dixie smiles proudly and sniffles. "The Batbat."

"I'll be honest with you. That is amazing." Cantrell grins at Dixie. "Okay, let's get you upstairs."

Dixie puts her foot on the first step and leans sideways, off balance. Cantrell puts a hand on her shoulder. "Okay, let's use the elevator."

Between the two of them they get Dixie to the library. The stairs up to the bedrooms are old-fashioned and narrow so Bruce helps Dixie, who complains the whole way, while Cantrell follows behind pointing out that she could just fly Dixie up the stairs. Bruce's leg hurts but he doesn't want to worry Dixie so instead he replies that her inner ear is spinning enough and freefall would probably just make her worse. Before Cantrell can answer they're on the upper level. Just a few doors to Dixie's room.

"Nice place," Cantrell says, overly impressed by the out of date furniture and old ceiling beams. Almost everything in here is old. The bed dates back to the 19th Century, the table and chair on the other side of the room to the early 20th, that scratched up wardrobe Alfred loves and insists someone has to use goes back to the 17th. Only the bedding and Dixie's own possessions, posters and mementos and stuffed animals, are new. It all seems worn out to Bruce. To a student surrounded by plywood and plastic furniture it might be impressive.

Still wrapped in her blanket, Dixie climbs into bed. "I'm not tired," she grumbles as she pulls another blanket up over her head.

"If that's all the arguing you're doing, then you're tired," Cantrell tells her. Dixie makes a rumbling noise.

So far so good. Dixie isn't too upset. She seems to be settling down to rest. Cantrell is a responsible adult. Everything is fine. He can go now.

"Have you contacted the Planet about your interviews?"

Cantrell nods. "I've already done one of them. Cat Grant interviewed me about you. That should be out tomorrow, actually. And then the day after I'm meeting Lois Lane."

He's aware of Cat Grant and has even met her a couple of times. Superficially superficial. A writer with a talent for flattering stories that sneak a knife in so gently the victim says thank you even as their reputation dies. But she lives and dies on access, and for her this story is another way to close in on the upper ranks of Gotham society. Grant will do what Cantrell needs, and Bruce will make sure Grant gets what she wants.

"I'm not looking forward to this, Bruce. Lois Lane is a really good journalist." Cantrell Kent, who can pulverize diamonds between her fingers, looks worried about the prospect of talking to a woman with a digital recorder and a notepad.

"You'll do fine. The only piece of information that links you directly to the K-Fall was in Humanite's private hard drive. And I have that. So far as anyone else is concerned you're just an ordinary person with some unusual friends."

Dixie's suite has a bedroom, walk-in closet, en suite bathroom, and a small office. The office is more like a narrow hallway with an 18th Century teak reading desk at the end. Bruce shows it to Cantrell. "If you need more room to work there's an alcove at the end of the hall with a table and chair. Past the guest rooms. And the library or sitting room downstairs."

"I've just got one textbook, my laptop, and a small binder. I'll read in the office until Dixie falls asleep."

"M'm not sleepy," snuffles a tired voice. Bruce pats the general area of her shoulder under the blankets.

"All right," he says to Cantrell. "Let's talk about pay."

"Are you sure? I'm happy to help. I mean, babysitters can be expensive." Then she grins. "Sorry. Forgot who I was talking to."

"Obviously. How much do babysitters generally get paid?"

With a shrug she answers "Around twenty bucks an hour. At least in Metropolis."

"That's hardly more than minimum wage."

Cantrell bites her lip. "Um... "

"I'm joking. I'm aware of the minimum wage." There was no reason to expect her to get a joke about how out of touch he is. She probably does think he's out of touch. She's probably right.

Placing a hand over her heart she sighs in exaggerated relief. "Oh thank goodness."

"You're looking after a billionaire's kid. The extra security requirements should be worth something."

"No."

"No what?" Is she really arguing that she shouldn't get paid?

"You were about to say some ridiculous amount. Normal pay is fine."

"I was going to say twenty-five."

"Oh. That's alright."

"Too late."

Dixie grumps at him from under the blankets. "Bruu - " A hacking fit cuts her off. Bruce steps over to the bed and lifts the blanket away from her face. He's surprised by how hot her skin is under his fingers. Cantrell would notice if Dixie's temperature was dangerously high, right? Or does she know what a bad fever looks like? Has she ever been sick?

"I'm fiiiine," Dixie rasps.

"All right." Bruce lowers the blanket. "What does a bad fever look like to you?"

"Mmm," Cantrell looks thoughtful for a second. "Well, above about a hundred, hundred and one, it's a lot brighter and it's more a, well, an indigo-red. Sorry if that doesn't make much sense."

It'll have to do. "Twenty-five dollars an hour and I'll be back by eleven."

"I am fine with just helping out. I like Dixie."

"Looking after a kid is work. When you work, you get paid."

It's a simple enough statement. Her reaction to it catches him off guard. She looks stunned for a second, and just stares. Then she gets ahold of herself and nods. "Right."

Bruce leaves to get some supplies and write down a few notes for Cantrell. His ears are only sharp by human standards but that's sharp enough. Behind him he hears Dixie ask Cantrell if she's okay and Cantrell replies that she had a weird moment there, Bruce reminded her of her father for a second.

What the hell is that supposed to mean? It means the hormonal rush is over is what it means. Good. That will make both their lives easier.

There's a kitchenette between the sun room and the sitting room. He's not sure what it was before his parents had the little room rewired. A bar maybe, or just storage. Bruce checks the minifridge to make sure Dixie's food is still there. Then he draws a jug of water and sets it on a tray with the herbal tea pot, cups, spoons, cream and sugar, and some of the peppermints he likes when he has a sore throat. The kettle is old and heavy, probably an antique, with a dangerously long cord. It can wait for a second trip. He considers preparing another tray. Just in case Dixie gets hungry. Or wants something else to drink. Running up and down stairs is well within Cantrell's ability. She can handle it.

As he approaches the door he hears Cantrell. "Yep. Gliese 581c, in the constellation Libra. My ancestors called it Krypton."

"Cool." That's exactly what she'd said when Bruce had explained that friendly Cantrell Kent with the nice desserts was an alien capable of swimming unharmed in liquid nitrogen. Either Dixie doesn't get it or Bruce is missing something. He has a feeling it's the second.

When he comes in the room Cantrell is sitting by Dixie's bed, in the ornate chair carved to look like entwined Chinese dragons. It used to be across the room. The old chair is heavy and he doesn't know why it even occured to him to think of that. He puts the tray on the bedside table. "There's filtered water in the jug. This is the pot Alfred uses for herbal teas, not black. The electric kettle is downstairs. I'll go grab it."

"I won't need it."

"Right." Of course not. She can boil water with an idle glance. Her abilities must be useful for more than just disaster relief.

"Sandwiches and soup are in the minifridge, in the kitchenette off the sitting room. There are cold cuts in the fridge as well. Cream cheese. Should still be some bagels in the breadbox."

"Okay."

"And I've written Alfred and Selina's numbers down, they're on a stickynote on the fridge."

"Thank you."

"I'll tell security I let you in myself. They won't be thrilled about not being informed, but they're resigned to my lifestyle. That way if you need to contact anyone or just want to go for a walk they won't be caught off guard. In the event of a break-in or an attack on the manor the cave functions as a panic room."

"Bruce."

"Sorry. Forgot who I was talking to. Should I have brought a lemon squeezer? I know you can do it by hand but - "

"Bruce." She looks as though she's amused by something.

"What?"

"She'll be fine. Go."

"I'm just - "

"Brooding like my dad did every time mom caught a cold. Go."

"If she gets bored there's - "

"I'll tell her a Kryptonian story. Go!"

He looks over at Dixie. She sticks a hand out from under her blankets and waves.

Fuck. "... All right."


	2. Chapter 2

"I'm still kind of cold."

"Let me have a look." Cantrell stares at Dixie's forehead. Watching Cantrell, Dixie sees her eyes do that thing where indigo light comes from behind the pupils and her eyes go unfocused like she's looking past you. It's gotta be so cool to be her. "Well, your blood flow and oxygen levels are all good and your temperature's high but not dangerous. And your breathing is fine. Sinuses are pretty gross though. You might be miserable, but it's a good fever."

"It really isn't."

Fumbling at the bedside table, Dixie grabs a tissue. She drags it back under her blankets and blows her nose. "Gross," she mutters, and dumps the tissue in the little bin Alfred brought up earlier.

"I could grab you another blanket. Are there any in the wardrobe?"

"Yeah. I think there's a big quilt. Thanks."

Cantrell opens the wardrobe and checks around a bit. "This thing is nice. How old is it?"

"Really old. Older than Alfred."

Dragging the quilt out, Cantrell snorts. "Alfred's about as old as my parents. As they would have been."

Sometimes that past-tense sneaks up on you. Dixie gets it.

"I thought a rich guy would have fancier stuff. This quilt is handmade."

Dixie knows exactly what she means. Nothing here is what she expected when a billionaire said hey, come live in my mansion. "Yeah. It took me a long time to get used to this place. It's a fancy mansion, and it's full of expensive antiques and rare paintings and stuff. But antique just means old. It's an old house too. So the insulation kind of sucks and the wifi really sucks. And I keep finding old stuff that's not antique-old, it's just old-old. Toys. Clothes. There's dried out typewriter ribbon in a box in one of the offices."

"And quilts made out of old blankets." Cantrell wraps the quilt around herself and pulls it tight. "Here, I'll warm it for you."

"What are you doing?"

"Raising my body temperature. I can be really hot. I should probably rephrase that."

Dixie snickers, and then it turns to a hack. "Nah."

"But if I do it too fast I'll scorch the quilt. And my clothes."

"Too hot for clothes."

"Darn right."

Dixie's not exactly shivering but it's close. When Cantrell pulls the quilt over her the warmth slowly soaks in through the other layers of blankets, making the chill easier to take. "Thanks."

Cantrell sits in the old black and red chair, the one Dixie never uses because it's pretty but that ornate back is lumpy and uncomfortable. The carved dragons don't let you sit comfortably. Cantrell doesn't seem to mind. She leans back and crosses her legs, with her binder open in her lap.

"So how is being rich?"

"Weird." It's like the house. There's a lot about it she didn't expect. "Back when I was with mom and dad, I would have said everyone at my new school was rich. But now I'm richer than any of them. Some of the other kids at school have wealthy parents, but not like Bruce. It's just really weird."

Her brain keeps sliding around in circles. It's a little hard to put her thoughts in order. "You know what's really weird? Driving around with Batman, being trained, helps. 'Cause I've got to pay attention to people, and almost no one in Gotham is rich. So we go to a drive through and talk about the prices, and how much the people working there get paid. Or what the rent is in the Narrows and what sort of jobs most people there have. How many hours they work to buy a pair of shoes."

Dixie fumbles around for more tissue. Finally she just drags the whole box down to the bed. Cantrell waits while Dixie clears her sinuses.

"I get thirteen hundred dollars a week just for being a rich kid. But I pay my own phone bill and buy my own stuff, clothes and things, and Bruce made me pick a charity. It's up to me how much I give them but it has to be something and I have to know what the charity does." $1700 a month is a lot of money. At thirteen Dixie Grayson is the single largest donor to a mobile clinic working in the Bergen Narrows. It's weird. "I can't just dump change in a charity jar. I can, but it doesn't count. Stuff like that. I have a budget."

Her throat is getting sore. Dixie reaches up and grabs a mint. Cantrell asks if she wants any tea and Dixie says not yet.

"You go to drive throughs in your work gear?"

The first time they did it Robin thought Batman must be crazy. But the staff was weirdly happy to see Batman staring up at the pay window. The teller reached down to bump fists. "Yeah. The people there like us. We pay cash and we tip big. And when the cops ask why they didn't try to stall us, so they can grab us, they can honestly say they're not paid enough to try and delay a couple of nuts in armour. When you're physically active like me and Bruce you need to eat a lot so they get a lot of money out of us. Bruce says you're solar powered. Do you eat?"

"Yep. I still need to build bones, muscle, things like that. Not a lot though, because I get my energy from the sun, but I still need nutrients. And I need filler to keep my stomach from rumbling. And I like eating, especially when I'm with other people."

That all makes sense. Bruce made her go through a huge file of reports from around the world and no one could eat enough calories to do what Cantrell does. But your stomach won't be happy on vitamin pills and meal replacement drinks alone. Dixie clears her throat to ask how being strong means she can fly but it turns into a hacking cough and a couple of nasty wet sneezes. Dixie props herself up and cleans the sheets where she sneezed and arranges the blankets and quilt again. She's cold but she's also hot and sweaty and smells bad and being sick sucks.

Dixie drags her laptop off the table. She fumbles around with her bedding for a minute, trying to arrange herself so she can see her screen without having to hold up her own head, which is so full of snot it weighs about fifty pounds. She struggles to make the screen rotate properly. It's a lot more complicated than it should be, because when you're sick everything is garbage. And then she needs headphones but trying to rest her head while wearing those is just a whole process. Finally she's set up to watch some of her favourite videos. Which after a few minutes she realizes she's seen a dozen times before, of course, and all the More Like This kind of suck. And cat pictures just aren't working for her either.

When she found out about Cantrell Kent she went back and bookmarked a bunch of old videos, ones that Cantrell's friend Pete put online. Dixie gives those a try. Her favourite is Luthor's cargo-loading robot running amok, stacking cars on top of one another. Cops watch while the robot carefully places a police van on top of someone's subcompact. Cantrell, dressed like a farm kid and looking barely older than Dixie, glares hard at her friend and spreads her hands as if to say ' _Well?!_ ' and the view pans back to Lex Luthor, who smiles proudly and says "It's trying _so hard_ " and Dixie's seen it already.

The classics just aren't working for her. Dixie groans and pulls her headphones off.

Lowering her binder, Cantrell looks over at her and asks what's wrong.

"The internet has failed me. I can't find anything good."

"Bored?"

"Yeeeaaah, a little. But I don't want to do anything, you know?" Except blow her nose. Dixie destroys another tissue.

"Well, if you've got enough energy to be bored that means you're getting better. Want me to tell you a story from Krypton?"

She's too old for stories. Usually. But stories from an alien planet? "Sure!"

Placing her binder on the bedside table, Cantrell sits up straight in the old chair. She looks just as eager as Dixie feels. "I think I know a good one for you. It's a really old legend, one of the oldest, going back to Kryptonian prehistory."

Cantrell arranges her hands like she's getting ready for the kamehame hadoken, then draws them in to her solar plexus and bows towards Dixie.

" _Haelaela kalro, lumdaen si fortaen_."


	3. Chapter 3

_Children, be silent and learn._

"Rao and Krypton made the dragons Nightwing and Flamebird, gods of the dark sky and the fires of the earth, and they made their children to stand against ruin and despair.

"Born in the blood of the Gold Volcano, the fire-feathered Flamebird was sent by Rao to remake the world. This she did by burning the works of her uncle, Voek the Builder. She did so, and Voek was thankful for this meant he must always make new things.

"Born in the deepest shadows, the black-taloned Nightwing was tasked by his father Rao to hunt down the evils which hid in the endless night of Kythonna. Being a lone hunter, a thing of night and silence, Nightwing could not walk among the other gods, and he was alone in his war.

"The Nightwing hunted in the shadows, and was forgotten by his kin. The Flamebird burnt her uncle's works, and Voek was grateful. Amongst all his kin the Flamebird was his most beloved. Voek's only sorrow was that the wings of the Flamebird burned too brightly for any god to come near. His sister's daughter was alone in her fire.

"In time Voek grew to know of his far nephew, and realized the Nightwing was lonely. But when Voek tried to speak to the Nightwing in its lair the night-chill was too great for him. Rather than risk the hunter's night, Voek left games and tricks for his nephew to solve. At first simple, but over time each one grew harder than the one before it. Every night he would leave a game outside his nephew's lair, and the Nightwing would find the answer. Every morning the Flamebird would wreck the puzzle, forcing Voek to make a new one.

"The cold of the Nightwing was too fierce to draw near, and the fire of the Flamebird too hot to bear. But every evening Voek left a more cunning puzzle, and each night it took longer for the Nightwing to solve. Every morning the Firebird would rush to see what new thing there was for her to unmake. And every day the Flamebird and the Nightwing grew closer.

"Through the workings of Voek, the Nightwing and the Flamebird drew slowly together. In time they met over Voek's final puzzle. The Flamebird hardly felt the chill of the Nightwing, and the Nightwing bore the Flamebird's fires. They became lovers."

" _Of course. Are there any mythologies without incest?_ "

"Voek was happy to see the Nightwing and the Flamebird together. To speak his joy he created his finest work, a sweeping rainbow river that shone with all of his love for his most beloved kin and her mate. The Flamebird wept for the need to destroy it, but she meant to fulfill her oath to Rao. Three times she made to destroy it, and three times Voek begged for this work to be spared, and finally the Flamebird gave in. The rainbow river was the first of Voek's works to see a new day.

"That new dawn broke, and for the first time Voek looked on his own work anew. Seeing the work again, seeing only its flaws and how it could be made better, drove Voek to rage. He took up his tools and broke the rainbow river in two, and half became cold mud and half shone only on barren stone. For the first time he broke his own work, and the deed unmade Voek. Voek the Builder became Voek the Breaker.

"Blaming the Flamebird for failing in her oath to her father, Voek turned against her. His first trap was a vast maze with walls of shining gems. He lured the lovers to the labyrinth and trapped them inside of it, trapped within their own endless likenesses. But the Nightwing soon found a way out of the maze, and the Flamebird shattered the walls, scattering the shards across Lurvan. And the two flew away thinking nothing of it, for it seemed just another of Voek's many tricks.

"The labyrinth failed, as did Voek the Breaker's next trap, and the next. And the next."

" _This guy is the Wylie E Coyote of gods_."

"Finally Voek took a spur from the hide of Dumzag and made a spear from it. And he carried it to the Nightwing, and to the bleak hunter he said 'Behold, I have made a spear to pierce the hearts of the evil, but to those who burn with the mercy of your father it can do no harm. Try and and see.'

"The Nightwing took the spear and tried it, driving it into Voek's heart. But Voek had cut out his heart and burnt it, and in its stead he had only frozen stone. The spear of Dumzag did nothing.

"'Prove it on my most beloved niece. It will do no harm to those who burn with your father's fire.'

"The Nightwing took up the spear, and he called out to the Flamebird to come and see. And when he saw her, he pierced her heart with the spear of foul bone.

"On his fifth attempt, Voek the Breaker killed the Flamebird.

"The Nightwing's hunt for Voek the Breaker is a whole epic in its own right. Nightwing pursued Voek through the winter plains and across the underworld and to the edge of Kythonna's outer darkness, and in the end he caught Voek and ripped out his stone heart and ground it to salt. And just to be sure he took the salt and srpread it out into deadly trails across the sky so it couldn't come together again. And when Voek was finally dead, the Nightwing took the bloodied spear that he had slain the Flamebird with, and drove it through his own heart, and was burned by the Flamebird's blood, and died."

" _Dark_."

"Translation problems. The actual language has a lot of references to regrowth and healing that can't be translated to English without a lot of explanation. It's a reincarnation story, ultimately.

"Rao and his children wept. They took up the bodies of the fallen and they took them to the winter plains. They took them to the winter plains, but the heart of the ground was frozen and would not take them. So they took her to the place where Rao's tears had fallen, and they made her caern from the rocks of the falls. And they took him to the Scarlet Jungle, bright as Rao's wrath, and they made his coffin from the roots of the hantha tree.

"Rao and Krypton and all the gods wept for the Nightwing and the Flamebird, all but five. Voek wept for himself. Kythonna cared not. And the Destroyer laughed. All but three mourned, and two rejoiced. The Nightwing and the Flamebird rejoiced, for they do not die. Beyond the shadow of death and even the light of Rao, the Nightwing and the Flamebird do not die.

"These are the words of the Nightwing. We do not die. We are the fire and the air, the earth and the water. We do not die. We are the lightning in the night and the shadows of the moons. We do not die.

"And the Flamebird spoke, and these are the words of the Flamebird, the last star in the sky. We do not die. We are the hopes of our father, we are the hopes of our mother.

" _Haelaela kalro, lumdaen si fortaen_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh. My attempts to rewrite the canon Nightwing and Flamebird fairy tales/myths into something resembling actual Semetic mythology became a huge mess. I'm not happy with this hacked down version, but I doubt I'm ever actually going to be happy with it. Done and posted is better than endlessly re-edited and never posted.


	4. Chapter 4

_Children, grow in peace_.

"Want some tea?" Cantrell asks her. "You're looking a little dry."

Still thinking about the story, Dixie nods and says please. Dixie watches while Cantrell pours some water into a mug. She places a bag of lemon tea in the other mug.

"Huh," Dixie says. It's an interesting story, but she's not sure what to think about it. "I liked it, but I think I'm probably missing a lot."

"Yeah," Cantrell says, staring at the water. Dixie's expects beams, but there's nothing she can see. Steam rises from the mug. "That's the simplified version. There are a lot of references that don't translate, at least not without over-explaining the story. It would take forever to explain how the word _saodin_ , alone, is used in the story. Or an easier example, Kythonna means something like 'night frost on rock', and it sounds similar to an old phrase for winter plains. And Kythonna was also the goddess of the exiled souls trapped in the outer darkness, and you could appeal to her to communicate with the souls of the dead. So when they took Nightwing and Flamebird to the winter plains, it could also mean they took them to their aunt, or they tried to speak to their spirits."

The water starts to boil and Cantrell pours it into the other cup, over the tea bag. There's no coaster, so instead of putting the tea cup directly on the bedside table Cantrell puts it on top of a couple of napkins. Then she puts the honey and spoons close by for Dixie.

Lemon-scented steam seeps into Dixie's sinuses while she thinks about the story. It's interesting, and it probably makes more sense in context, but even if they are reborn it feels cruel.

"Was this a happy story for Kryptonians? Because even if they were reincarnated it sounds kind of harsh."

"Well, it's a cyclic story. In each cycle, the Nightwing and the Flamebird are reborn, as friends, as kin or parent and child, or as lovers, and have to find each other. They were originally an independent pair of gods, or dragons, a kind of living yin-yang cycle. They protected people against imbalances in nature or society. When the Kryptonian mythologies were brought together they became the children of Rao. But they were always too independent to be servants the way his other children were."

The steam and hot tea is loosening up her throat and sinuses. Unfortunately that includes loosening up a lot of snot. Dixie blows her nose again while Cantrell talks. "They were major folk heroes in Kryptonian myth. A society as hierarchal as Krypton needed some sort of outlet for people's frustrations."

"So there are more stories about them?"

It seems a bit late now, but Dixie grabs the bottle of sanitizer and cleans her hands. When Dixie puts the bottle down, Cantrell takes it and puts a little sanitizer on a napkin. She uses it to wipe the handle of Dixie's cup.

"Lots. There are five major stories of the reincarnations of Nightwing and Flamebird, and dozens of lesser ones. They were popular gods, protecting people not just from monsters but from the excesses of the other dieties. There's one story of them facing down Rao himself and telling him to stop causing so many droughts. In the ancient days, during times of injustice invoking those two was basically a call to riot."

Watching Cantrell wipe her hands, Dixie sips hot lemon tea. Now is probably as good a time as any to ask about something. Bruce used to be kind of weird around Cantrell. Like he had a stick shoved up his butt, actually. But they spent a few days talking and now he seems okay. "Um."

Cantrell raises her eyebrows a bit. "Um?"

Fortune favours the bold, mom used to say. "I think Bruce likes you."

"Ah." Cantrell sits back and puts one arm over the chair. "I like Bruce."

"Yeah." How much of her luck does she want to push? "I mean, you know... "

"Like likes. I know." Cantrell smiles. "I don't know if you noticed or not, but your foster father is kind of hot."

"Okay, we can talk about something else now."

"Too late Dixie, it's time for The Talk." Pulling her arm back, Cantrell leans forward and grins at Dixie.

"Oh please no."

The grin dims to a more serious smile. Cantrell tells her that's exactly what she said when her parents sat down with her for the relationships talk. "So, serious question. Do you really want to hear about Bruce from me?"

No. Yes. Maybe. Yes. "Yeah."

Cantrell nods. "Well, to begin with, I have a boyfriend and I like him a lot. He's a really good person for me to be with. So Bruce and I isn't happening. And even if I didn't... I'll tell you the same thing I told Bruce. I'm trying to keep my head down, keep anyone from looking too closely at me, and Bruce is a high-profile billionaire. That isn't good for me. And he's in his mid-twenties. I'll be nineteen in June. He has a degree and I won't be finished school for a few more years. That isn't good for me. I'm barely ready for my own life. I'm definitely not ready to get involved with someone like him."

Cantrell's thought about this a lot.

"You know about Bruce and Selina and how their relationship works?"

"Oh God, they tried to explain it to me and it was just a mess." Clearing her throat, Dixie tries to remember what those two said. "Selina talked about cats and territory and overlapping families. That was weird but kind of made sense. Except the part about mice. I'm not sure, I don't know what she was trying to say with that. Then Bruce got into this really strange story about beetles and recycling and the circle of life - "

Cantrell just looks at Dixie like what. "What?"

"I know. I think he overthought it and it came out weird. He does that sometimes. So I kind of smiled and said uh-huh and wow a lot, and then I looked up open relationships online."

"Please tell me you had safesearch on."

"I'm thirteen. I don't need training wheels on the internet."

"Yes you do aw geez I was about to say 'young lady' and now I feel old. Thanks, kid."

Dixie tries to laugh but it comes out like one of Bruce's wheezes. Cantrell wheezes back, a good imitation of Bruce's laugh, and that just makes Dixie wheeze harder until it hurts and she has to stop and catch her breath.

Cantrell watches Dixie sip lemon tea. "Well, on top of everything I said, an open relationship just isn't for me. That doesn't mean other people are wrong to be in open or poly relationships, it just means it's not for me. And I'm not going to ask him to break up with Selina. That would be so many layers of screwed up. He's got an amazing back, and don't get me started on my competence kink, but it's not worth screwing up like that."

Cantrell's really thought about this a lot. And the best she's come up with is 'um, maybe later?'. Dixie vows to keep her love life simple. And not ask what a competence kink is. If she ever really needs to know there's always Internet-sensei.

"Bruce is a good friend. I think I need him as a friend more than I need him as a boyfriend. And I like Jimmy. My boyfriend. So I'm not breaking up with him any time soon."

And sometimes you need to know when to step back from the ledge. Because that all sort of makes sense, but it has that feeling of being the kind of thing you can think about too much until it stops making sense. 'It's complicated'. Is there a switch in your brain where you get past a certain age and suddenly you don't do simple anymore?

Fighting with her blankets, Dixie lays back down. It takes a minute to get the pillow right again. While she fixes her nest, Dixie grumbles. "No offence, but this all sounds really complicated. when I get old I'm going to keep my relationships simple."

"Yeah," Cantrell says with a sigh. "That's what I said when I was your age."


	5. Chapter 5

Bruce parks in the garage and enjoys the short walk to the house. The muscle in his leg needs to move, to keep blood circulating through the bruise. The gravel path crunches underfoot and a cool breeze lifts the scents from the party off his suit. Too many people, too much conversation. Not enough money given, in his opinion. The organizers seemed happy with the funds discreetely transferred behind the scenes.

He enters at the main doors and turns right halfway down the central hall. What used to be the side porch is now a workout room, connected to the narrow spur between the central building and the east wing. The spur is a narrow corridor running between rows of servants quarters and storage rooms, mostly unused, and connects to the old side door of the east wing. Once he's in the residential wing of the manor, Bruce hears voices down the hall. The sitting room.

It's late but Dixie is still half-awake, curled up in the corner of the sitting room couch. She's not really a small kid but she looks tiny in her layers of pajamas and housecoats and blankets. She drags herself to her feet when Bruce comes in.

Ignoring the risk of infection Bruce hugs Dixie. "You should be in bed."

"M'm okay," Dixie mutters. "I just wanted to say hi."

Relaxed in the big chair across from the couch, Cantrell watches Bruce pat Dixie's back. She smiles indulgently. "And my parents used to call me the poster child for separation anxiety. You don't need to check her for injuries, Bruce."

After one last pat Bruce breaks the hug. "I'm not. It's just training. Habit. You should be in bed, Dixie."

"Yeah, yeah. Good night." Bruce and Cantrell watch her wobble out of the sitting room in the general direction of the stairs. Cantrell comes over to stand on Bruce's right.

"You're surprisingly good with kids," she tells him.

"It's - " _Nothing. Easy_. Wrong words. A lot of work, but less so than dealing with adults. Do people really find it too much? How do people have kids if people say it's surprising to be patient with kids? "Security gave me a strange report. Anything about the incident stand out to you?"

Shrugging, Cantrell slips a bookmark into her textbook and turns to face Bruce. "Aside from the fact that some musclehead in a luchador mask managed to get over the walls? I slapped the guy around a couple of times and called him a _bobo_. Dixie was asleep by then so I kept the noise down. What happened to your face?"

He'd almost forgotten about the welt by his eye. Doesn't do much worse than sting. "I annoyed a drunk. She slapped me."

A line appears down Cantrell's brow. "Maybe don't overplay the rich jerk routine, okay? Not if it gets you hurt."

"It'll help, overall. Things like this explain the bruises I show up with."

Still frowning she crosses her arms. "So you deliberately goaded someone into slapping you? Bruce, that is seriously... "

"I didn't know she would slap me. I thought she might walk away, or yell at me."

"That's still not something you should be doing to anyone. Her or yourself."

"I agree. But it was the easiest way to get out of the conversation. She was drunk and kept repeating the same story."

Finger tapping on the book now. Why does she insist on pushing a conversation that annoys her? "Did you honestly get yourself slapped to escape an awkward social situation?"

"I've done worse." Opened a fifth floor window and just walked out, for example.

"Bruce." She shakes her head. The only thing he's sure of is that it's not mockery in her voice. Or pity. Sympathy? Concern? She doesn't say anything else and he's not sure what to do with that.

"Why was Dixie still up?"

"Because she wanted to see you when you got home. Hold still and let me look at that." She shifts the textbook over to her left hand and reaches towards his face.

He puts out a hand to stop her. "I don't need an exam."

"Stop fussing. Or do you want to worry Alfred instead?"

"No one needs to worry about this. I've had black eyes before."

Cantrell's lips get thin. "Bless your heart Bruce, but - "

Putting a hand up, Bruce cuts her off. Does she really think he's that badly out of touch? "I know what that means, Cantrell."

"Well." Cantrell crosses her arms again and gives Bruce a look he's seen before. Selina when she's about to give him hell for what she calls his masculine idiocies. "Well, maybe if you weren't so determined not to worry people that you end up worrying people even more."

Bruce stares at her for a few seconds. "How?"

"How what? How are you trying not to worry people, or... ?"

"How were you planning on looking?"

"Oh." She unfolds her arms and puts her hands on her hips. The big textbook jutting out at an odd angle just makes the pose look silly.

"Normal vision. Maybe a little infrared, that's a good way to see how things are healing. Not x-ray vision."

"All right."

"Thank you." Her eyes glimmer, not bright enough to cast shadows across her face, and her fingers come near the welt. "It's not bad, but there's a bit of abrasion in a couple of spots. She hit you pretty hard. Do you plan to press charges?"

The public fallout from Bruce Wayne pressing criminal charges against a drunk partygoer... "No."

That seems to be good enough. Cantrell moves on. "Well you cleaned it right. If we apply something to help healing, that should prevent microscarring. Even just a vitamin e lotion should do the trick."

"I have some upstairs."

She follows him upstairs, where he resists the urge to check in on Dixie. Leading her down the hall to his suite, he realizes he's never actually invited her here before. She's gotten better about not just showing up in his space.

The same could be said about him. He hadn't handled his first botched attempt to contact her well, and had kept repeating his mistakes. Stupid.

"Wow," she says, looking around at a room she's seen before. Thick ceiling beams, mismatched old furniture, lots of dark wood and leather. It's a stereotypical bachelor space, but Selina likes it as well. "Nice comfortable jumble," Cantrell calls it. "My mom would have liked it."

Talking about her parents is probably safe. "And your dad?"

She almost laughs. "Would have been polite, and asked a couple of questions about that desk, and on the way home would say you need to sell everything in here and donate the funds to charity."

Her parents had left a third of their stake in the family business to their child, a third to their employees, and the final third to charities supporting kids. It seems petulant to say that his will does something broadly similar with the Wayne fortune, or that however much the furniture in here is worth it's a grain of sand compared to the mountain of the Wayne Foundation. No point arguing with a ghost. "I don't like furniture shopping," he says. "Big box store layouts give me a headache."

He leaves her in the main bedroom while he searches for the jar of ointment in the en suite. When he returns she's looking out the patio doors, towards the slope leading up to the Watchung and Miagani Reservations. The backroads in that region are part of the covert approach to the manor. Handing her the jar he sits on the edge of his desk and waits.

"Hold still." Cantrell takes a bit of ointment on her fingers and dabs it gently on the bruise around his eye. Her fingers are warm.

This doesn't feel like Alfred helping him with a hard to reach spot. Almost but not exactly mom, after he'd skinned his knees again. Selina. The night he'd staggered home after one of Thorne's legbreakers hit him with a truck. Nothing life threatening but every inch of him covered in overlapping bruises and abrasions. He'd barely gotten the armour off and managed to stumble up to his room. And found Selina draped across his bed, wearing nothing but cat makeup and a strategically placed whip.

He'd asked "What are you doing here?" because he is a fucking idiot about some things. A lot of things.

"Demonstrating the worst timing in the world," she'd answered. And then she'd made him go to bed, and she'd wandered out to the bathroom and returned with a jar of ointment and a couple of painkillers.

Selina had broken into his home, his bedroom, after he'd spent months chasing across the city, and she pushed him down to his bed and gave him painkillers and started to rub ointment onto his skin. He'd fallen asleep with her making soft purring noises as she dabbed gently around an abrasion on his left thigh. Her fingers had been warm.

"There," Cantrell says, sounding oddly pleased. "That's better."

She hands him the jar and he takes it back to the bathroom, more relaxed than he had been earlier. Getting everything out into the open was what it took to kill his desire. The edge is off their interactions and that's a relief. When he comes back she watches him. Watches his leg.

"Bruce." She makes a grumbling noise, deeper than a sigh. "You weren't limping earlier."

More relaxed than he should have been with others around. "I was masking it earlier. Didn't want anyone at the event to see it. Minor injuries are okay, a bruise from a bullet is too much for Bruce Wayne."

"You're hurt. And you're trying to hide it."

He already knows she's going to make too much of this. Like he hasn't been shot before. "Bruise on my thigh. I'm going out of town soon and Batman needs to be seen. Keeps the rumour mill going while I'm away."

"You got yourself into a brawl and now you're injured."

"It's a bruise. A Red Hood wannabe shot me in the leg. Armour absorbed the impact."

"Please tell me at least Alfred knows about this."

"It's fine. No one needs to worry about this."

All that does is make Cantrell smile at him. A tight, unhappy smile. “Too late. Or do you think I'm not worried by this?"

Obviously a rhetorical question. "I can take care of myself."

"Your standard of self-care needs some raising. Do I need to start following you around to make sure you take care of yourself?”

The idea is so bad it takes him a couple of seconds to think of an objection. “You have classes.”

It's physically impossible for her to have not heard him, so she is clearly ignoring him. “Alfred can't spend all his time reminding you to look after yourself. You need a coach, until you finally pick up the habit.”

Like he's chained to another out of control car his brain latches on to the idea and drags him along with it. Accelerating down the street of 'Cantrell Wandering Around The Manor As She Reviews Her Class Notes' it smashes off a parked car (Make and model, That Ridiculous Grin Of Hers v2020), runs over a series of speedbumps involving the three-cheese casserole she'd threatened him with once, and finally flips over at bursts into flames at the corner of 'Sitting Across The Table At Breakfast, Wearing One Of His Old Sweaters'.

Cantrell puts her hands on her hips and nods. “Yep. The more I think about it the better it sounds.”

Time for an attack of desperation. "Fine. You explain to the media why Bruce Wayne is shacking up with a nineteen year old."

The deep blush that spreads across her face is almost as good as the look of panic. "Shacking - No! I didn't - That's not - Forget it! Take care of yourself!"

"Thank you."

* * *

"Okay, I guess it's time to go home. Let me just go wrap Dixie up so she stays warm on the flight."

"What are you talking about?"

"She's mine now. I'm taking her home with me."


End file.
